


Stakes were High

by Gammarad



Category: Good Omens (TV), Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Aliens, Angels, Crossover, Demons, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26710954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: akaSpirits were Brave ("This Doomsday Clock Ticking" Remix)When Aziraphale and Crowley go to Alpha Centauri, it's the Alpha Centauri from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, surrounded by planets of busy cities filled with tiny skyscrapers and small furry bureaucrats.Remix ofSpirits were BravebyDaegaer
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12
Collections: Remix Revival 2020





	Stakes were High

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Spirits were Brave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19143031) by [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer). 



In the long-ago era of the Galactic Empire, spirits were brave and stakes were high. Men were huge scary furless aliens; women were slightly shorter, slightly scarier, equally furless aliens; and the people of Alpha Centauri had never encountered bureaucracy. If they had, in those days, spotted a modern-day bureaucrat, they would have smote him mightily with the first weapon to hand. 

Those were the days when Magrathea's planet-creating industry was just getting going. Because of the work of the Magratheans, the existence of angels and demons became common knowledge throughout the Galactic Empire, at least in the circles of the people who mattered, the ones who could afford to have custom planets created to their specifications.

Every time a new planet was created, a pair of angels appeared to sanctify the new world's creation and grant it a place in the universe. Shortly thereafter, a demon or two was dispatched to make sure the planet knew it wasn't to give itself airs. 

But no one on Alpha Centauri believed any of those stories anymore. People who'd never heard of bureaucracy? Unimaginable. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's entry about angels read, "Beings who think their seal of approval is necessary for any new enterprise to succeed. Probably mythical." The entry about demons was shorter. "Avoid at all costs."

On Earth, one angel and one demon had made themselves at home. Destruction of their home would cause them a great deal of stress. In order to avoid any such outcome to this nervous, if not paranoid pair, who will be visiting Alpha Centauri and thus might, if they were alarmed unduly, cause damage to that precious world, let it be made clear that the Earth is not destroyed in the course of the story to follow.

Crowley had asked Aziraphale once to go to Alpha Centauri with him. It had not been an ideal moment for such an invitation, an understatement such as only a very English angel would use. The demon had been desperate. But the situation had changed, much for the better, and enough time had passed that the angel thought that if he should make a suitable plan, he and Crowley would be able to properly enjoy the visit. 

First, Aziraphale made sure their papers were in order. A small miracle to create a properly certified passport for himself, and another for Crowley, in the format the Alpha Centauri bureaucracy would find most acceptable. A brief study of one of their most widely used languages -- it was fascinatingly different from any spoken on Earth, it would be a waste to bypass the necessity to learn it. 

Once he could speak and read the language, and had the passports ready, he suggested a return visit to Crowley. The last time, Crowley invited Aziraphale there in desperation to get them both away from the imminent destruction of the Earth, Aziraphale had accepted without making any plans, and they'd had to return in haste. 

There would be no repeating that debacle.

This visit would be heavenly.

Perhaps that didn't suit Crowley as well as it suited Aziraphale. He had translocated them both to the entrance for the Spacious Gardens, a tourist spot displaying rare Centaurian flora to the larger visitors who could not fit in the Planetary Arboretum, no typical arrival point. Despite the fact that they had zapped to the most populous planet circling Alpha Centauri Prime via means unavailable to those lacking divine power, they were met by a customs agent. 

A small, furry customs agent who sounded like a cartoon chipmunk in the nonexistent children's animated version of the Tower of Babel story, right after the tower came down. Which was to say that Crowley had no idea what the small furry Alpha Centaurian was saying, anymore than he had last time.

"Ineffable," Crowley muttered. The diminutive customs agent chittering at him looked just like the one they'd seen many years earlier, running away from Armageddon.

That's my line, Aziraphale thought, and smiled angelically. "Of course, I have that right here," he said to the customs agent, handing over the miraculous passports. 

"Oooh." Ushazardu, that being the Alpha Centaurian custom agent's name, flipped pages. It was not possible for any of the visas in here to have been issued to the person pictured, and it was not possible for the description of the person the visas had been issued to to be a description of the personage who was depicted in the passport photograph, but everything was nevertheless certified by a greater authority as valid. So Ushazardu had to accept it as such. How terrifying, how satisfying -- it soothed both his lazy nature, being technically correct and unexceptionable and therefore requiring no work whatsoever on his part, and his secret soul, being something from a legendary tale. A cautionary tale, to be sure, but Ushazardu was, for an Alpha Centaurian bureaucrat, quite adventurous. That was why he had chosen the station at the Gardens, far from any port where anyone was likely to disembark from distant places. If anyone arrived here, they'd be extraordinary.

Crowley glanced sideways. Of course Aziraphale had learned the language. He and the million books of his. Crowley didn't need to learn languages on Earth. Demons had powers for that. He had to figure out how to make those powers work on these, whatever they were. Aliens. No, Little Chitter here was the local, Crowley was the alien here. He made a wordless sound of annoyance.

Aziraphale looked at him curiously. "Come again?"

"He looks like if a weasel got lost in Cotswolds Outdoor." Crowley wasn't wrong. The little alien had a skinny face and whiskers, even if he had no claws and more fingers on each paw than any terrestrial mustelid, and was dressed rather like a fellow from one of those hunting camping adverts of twenty or so years ago. 

"What'd he say?" The not-weasel looked up at Aziraphale. 

"He compared you, in a most complimentary way, to a handsome creature from Earth." 

There are several species on Earth that a denizen of Alpha Centauri might find quite flattering to be compared with, especially by an enormous and hideous alien visiting his planet, whether or not that alien's papers are in order. But the customs agents of Alpha Centauri do not listen to flattery. They also do not listen to insults. They care, only and always, about ensuring that visas have their stamps, unexpired dates, passports the proper issuing protocol and seals, and the other trappings of bureaucracy that their ancestors in the time of the Galactic Empire would have found both laughable and pitiable, first laughing, of course, then smiting, then pitying. If there was, after the smiting, anything left to pity.

But that was long ago and a modern Alpha Centaurian has pride in the up to date difficulty of arranging the license to smite. And if there is still no licensing for laughter, well, give it a few centuries and we shall see.

"Welcome to Alpha Centauri Prime, Du Crolley and Du Zerophile. From Earth, you say? That the 'mostly harmless' planet a few light years northdowneast of here?" 

Aziraphale didn't correct the alien's pronunciation of their names. "That's right, have you visited?" he asked politely.

"Not even once, sounds boring. But my ancestor, let me tell you, my ancestor saved that planet from destruction, he's a hero to ... well, you, it'd be." The weaselly alien wiggled all the many fingers on his paws suggestively, or Aziraphale at least thought it was meant to be suggestive. 

He couldn't guess what else the gesture might be indicating. "He says his ancestor saved the Earth from destruction."

"Big deal. We did that too." Crowley seemed impatient.

"Yes, we saved the Earth from destruction once, too," Aziraphale repeated in the local language. 

"Once! Hah. My ancestor didn't just save old 'mostly harmless' once."

"He says his ancestor saved Earth more than once."

"Twice?"

"Three times! I'll tell you all about it."

  1. **The first time Ushapiku saved the Earth from destruction**



_He was on his day off when it happened. He was a xenobureaucracy specialist, like me, making sure anyone visiting from outside the Alpha Centauri system had their paperwork filled out properly, but it was supposed to be a holiday for him and then these two giant supernatural monsters teleported in from that Earth place. Dangerous! It was a good thing the Guide had updated the place from "harmless," let me tell you, these two were anything but._

_Didn't do much damage here, though. My ancestor Ushapiku told them off, and when they realized they didn't have anything remotely like the right visas and permits, they were about to take off. He jumped into the bag one of them was carrying to make sure they didn't try again in a less populated part of the planet._

_Suddenly he was somewhere else. Earth, of course. He stuck his head out of the luggage and took a look around. Since he wasn't at all sure where he'd got to, he kept real quiet and paid attention. And it turned out, those two monsters ended up being needed to stop some kind of end of their world. Good thing he saved Earth by making sure they went home._

"He's talking about us, isn't he," Crowley said. 

"I rather think so. I remember finding him in my bag, afterward..."

"You never said anything."

"I didn't want to remind you? The trip to Alpha Centauri had been your idea."

"Angel..."

"But that was just the first time!"

  1. **The second time Ushapiku saved the Earth from destruction**



_The next time wasn't too long afterward. He was working on getting home, and the spacelanes didn't run to Earth, so it was looking like taking a long time. So he put in for a new hyperspace lane to be run through Earth. But the Vogons nearly got it wrong and thought it was supposed to literally run through the Earth, they were about to demolish it entirely._

_Good thing my ancestor Ushapiku was so skilled at xenobureaucracy! He had that paperwork updated so fast the Vogons didn't even have a chance to recite poetry about it. Good thing, too, Vogon poetry is some of the worst in the galaxy, you know._

...

"A hyperspace bypass. That sounds like the sort of thing you'd enjoy adding some bits to, Crowley." 

"It does, doesn't it." The demon seemed deep in thought. 

"And what was the third time?"

  1. **The third time Ushapiku saved the Earth from destruction**



_After fixing up the hyperspace lane situation, my ancestor finally managed to make it home again. It had taken him quite a while, and his disappearance had been noted. Reports of the giant monsters who had abducted such a well-regarded citizen had been taken very seriously, and a fleet of destroyers had been readied to send to the 'mostly harmless' Earth and render it completely harmless by the destruction of all giant and supernatural lifeforms there._

_The fleet was nearly ready to take off. Ushapiku almost didn't arrive in time. He found out what was planned immediately, but one of his most talented proteges was shepherding the project through its various interdepartmental approvals and budget filings, and it was all he could to do put roadblocks in the way to slow it down. Even his testimony that the giant monsters were not likely to return nor were they the sort to destroy our planet if they did wasn't enough to turn things around._

_Fortunately for you, my ancestor was top of his profession. Despite his age and having been away for so long, he still had the stuff. He brought out his documentation of the normal inhabitants of Earth, the ones that weren't giant monsters but ordinary folk like us, only a little different, fewer fingers on each hand and so on. He even had some pictures of them interacting in friendly ways with the giant monsters! Once his protege saw that, they managed to redirect the attack fleet away from the 'mostly harmless' Earth and toward a more significant danger, the Hingefreel fleet, on its way in our direction bearing bad news._

"Really," Aziraphale said, nonplussed.

Crowley had done something complicated around the time the alien's ancestor had gone home, and there was smoke coming out of his ears. "I see. And now here _you_ are, saving your own planet from destruction," he said airily to the Centaurian.

"He is?" Aziraphale said, confused.

"I am?" the alien squeaked, both confused and alarmed.

"Because," Crowley said, his voice sliding silkily along Aziraphale's senses in a way both alarming and familiar, "we are those very giant monsters your Ushapiku met, and we've come back to finish what we started. With only you in our way."

"Crowley," Aziraphale said, not quite a warning. Not quite _not_ a warning, either.

"Just joking, little guy," Crowley said, not sounding at all as if he meant it. "No need to fret. We're only tourists having a little fun."

The small furry alien from Alpha Centauri slammed the passports closed and handed them, fingers trembling, to Aziraphale. "It's-all-in-order-stay-safe-welcome-to-Alpha-Centauri-bye-now!" he mumbled in a rush and scurried away much faster than the angel had realized the weasel-like aliens could move. 

They were tourists, and they did have a little fun, and no planets were destroyed whatsoever. And Ushazardu put in for a transfer to the spaceport, where he would be kept much busier, but every day would bring ordinary and boring individuals for him to process. He had had enough of laziness and adventure, both. So it all came right in the end, you see. As it does, sometimes. Ineffably.


End file.
